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A DISCOURSE \ 



FOR THE TIMES. 



BY REV. DR. SCOTT. 

ST 



DELIVERED IN CALVARY CHURCH, SUNDAY, JULY 27, 1856. 



Education, and not Punishment, the True Remedy for the 
Wrong-Doings and Disorders of Society. 

1 Samuel, i. 24—28. 



SAN FRANCISCO: 
1856. 



FOR SALE BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS 



PLEASE READ AND CIRCULATE. 




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AC**' 
.535 

A DISCOURSE FOR THE TIMES, 

BY REV. DR. SCOTT. 
Delivered in Calvary Church, Sunday, July 27, 1856. 



Education, and not Punishment, the true remedy for the wrong-doings and 
disorders of society. 

1 Samuel, i. 24—28. 



Among the first discourses, fellow-citizens, 
which I delivered in this city in the Unitarian 
Church, more than two years ago. one was on 
** The Increase of Crime." in which I endeavor- 
ed to show that human depravity was not a myth, 
but a sad reality, and that sin was the fountain 
head of all human wrong-doing and suffering, 
and that the true causes of the extraordinary 
increase of crime, and especially o f crime against 
property and life in our day, were ihe inordinate 
love of money, the excessive desire of ri<-hes, 
the carrying of deadly weapons, the use of in- 
toxicating liquors, rash speculations, undue ex- 
citements, gambling, disregard for the Sabbath 
and neglect of religion, insubordination and 
lawlessness — and that these causes were more 
active and more fearfully developed because of 
the teachings of phrenology and of hurtful 
isms, and of a false philosophy as to the nature 
of sin, and of human responsibility for crime; 
and that all these causes resolved themselves 
into the infidelity of the heart — its awful alien- 
ation from God and emnity to all righteousness. 
And surely nothing has been presented from 
this pulpit more plainly, or in stronger terms, 
than the hatefulness of vice and the wrath of 
God against all unrighteousness. There has 
not been wanting in the ministrations of this 
place, any denunciation of the vices of society. 
The rewards of virtue have been unceasingly 
held out to those who do well, and the terrors cf 
the Lord to them that do evil. It is left cheer- 
fully to the public and to the Supreme Judge to 
decide whether I have not labored hard and toil- 
ed in all faithfulness to advance among you 
the cause of education free from all sectarian- 
ism, and to elevate public sentiment, and to pro- 
mote truth and rational liberty, ever since I 
came to California, according to the measure of 
strength given to me. 

Nor do I wholly despair, for it must be true., 
that the religion of Jesus Christ is the basis of 
human improvement and well doing. However 
diversified our opinions may be on other sub- 
jects, I apprehend there is scarcely a difference 
of opinion among us as to the truths of Chris- 
tianity, and its importance to society. Nor is 
there any difference of fee ing among us in our 
reverence for the Father"of our Country Hap- 
pi 1 " ■ f<;:- us there is yet one name tha. all sects 
au""tyarties will reverence. I think there is yet 
a healing charm in the name of Washington, 
and that veneration for his character and the 
Constitution inaugurated under his auspices, is 
still a nentiment that pervades alike all the 



American people, from Maine to Oregon. His 
Farewell Address is full of the most affectionate 
and earnest admonitions. A large part of it 
seems as if written expressly for our times. It 
seems as if the spirit of prophecy had fallen 
upon him, and that, foreseeing the perils of fac- 
tion and lawlessness, he had recorded for our 
troublous times his warning and advice. He 
speaks to us as a father to his children. And 
on the point I have in hand, he says: 

" Of all the dispositions and habits which lead 
to political prosperity, religion and morality are 
indispensible supports. In vain would thatman 
claim the tribute of patriotism who *>hould la- 
bor to subvert these great pillars of human hap 
piness, these firmest props of the duties of citi 
zens and men. The mere politician, equally 
with the pious man, ought to respect and cher- 
ish them. A volume could not trace all their 
connections with private and public felicity. 
And let us with caution indulge the supposition 
that morality can be maintained .without reli- 
gion. Whatever may be conceded to the influ- 
ence of refined education on minds of peculiar 
structure, reason and experience, both forbid us 
to expect that national morality can prevail in 
exclusion of religious principles." 

Last Lord's day you may remember, fellow 
citizens, that I attempted to explain briefly the 
history of Hannah and the dedication of her 
child to the Lord. Fur practical purposes. I 
considered our population as divide I into two 
classes — adults and children. And that we 
should. do something immediately for both, but 
that we could labor with the most hope for the 
young. From the Scriptural history of Hannah 
and her child, I made the following important 
points, namely: 

L That vast importance was attached to early 
impressions, and that therefore we should secure 
the inculcation of right, moral and religious 
principles upon our children in their earliest 
and tenderest years. This point was still fur- 
ther dwelt on in the evening by showing the im- 
portance of having right established principles. 

II. That by the early implanting of right 
principles, vice is checked and crime prevented, 
and, consequently, the State is saved from hea\y 
expenses, and sorrow and agony are greatly di- 
minished in society — that prevention was far 
better than a cure. 

III. That in the education of children, it is of 
vast importance to keep them from vile associa- 
tions and wicked companions; and that, there- 
fore, like Hannah, parents should nurse, train 



and' instruct their own children as far as possi- 
ble themselves, and keep them as much and as 
long as possible under home influences. 

IV. We attempted to show that the relief of 
the suffering, the education of the ignorant and 
the reformation of the vicious is the great work 
committed to us as patriots, philanthropists and 
Christians, and that we must achieve this work 
with all our heart and without delay. And 

V. The history of Hannah, whose piety we 
found to be eminent, showed the paramount in- 
fluence of mothers upon their children. To the 
mother it is given to impress on the mind and 
heart of the child, an image that shall shine glo- 
riously forever. It is hers to wreathe the foliage 
of her own vine into beautiful garlands, and 
ripen its blossoms into fruitful clusters- to adorn 
the bowers and halls of the Paradise of the ever 
blessed God. 

Parents and Teachers. 

The first place and the highest responsibility 
in the education of children belong to parents 
themselves, nor can they wholly escape from 
this responsibility. The next place is confess- 
edly that of the professional teacher, both of the 
week day and Sabbath school. And this brought 
me directly to my subject, which was, and is, a 
" plea in behalf of Sunday Schools," especially 
for such children as are orphans, or whose par- 
ents are either irreligious or so indifferent on the 
subject of bringing up their children, that they 
allow them to grow up without moral restraint 
and without religious instruction. While it is, 
however, our duty to ourselves, to our country, 
and to our Maker, to do all we can as citizens 
and as Christians, to bring up the youth of the 
land to a knowledge of God and of His laws, and 
to a knowledge of and reverence for the laws of 
our country — to nurse, train, educate, restrain 
and dedicate them as the mother of Samuel did: 
Still, as parents, we must remember that there is 
a responsibility resting on us, that cannot be 
met upon general principles, or by the discharge 
of our duties to the State. Our schools are in- 
tended to be co-workers with us. They must 
not be substituted for parental care, catechising 
and oversight. Parents themselves must take a 
deep interest in the selection of teachers for 
their children, and look over and assist them in 
their studies, and be as far as possible their com- 
panions in preparing their lessons, and by their 
sympathy always encourage the teacher in his 
efforts to imbue them with knowledge and good 
principles. 

To many persons the contemplation of suffer- 
ing around us'is so distressing, our moral evils 
are so appalling, the difficulty of doing any good 
is so great, and the best results obtained or 
hoped for so unsatisfactory, and their own efforts 
so feeble, spasmodic and disproportionable to 
the work to be done, that thej turn away from 
t?he subject, repulsed by its greatness and diffi- 
culty. Others are so perplexed by the multi- 
plicity and variety and apparent contradictions 
of the means proposed as a remedy for human 
suffering, and so dissatisfied with the success 
that has hitherto attended the efforts put forth 
for ameliorating the condition of society, that 
they do nothing. But the subject is too vital to 
be overlooked. Nor can we escape from its re- 
sponsibility by sitting down in despair. It we 
oannot (kaw off the stream of human wo by one 



effort, or in one hour, let us do what we can; 
and then hope on and toil on. It is certainly 
true that the right instruction of the youthful 
community is a great work. It cannot be done 
in a moment, nor by any one man, nor by the 
mere resolutions of a Legislature. It is a work 
requiring time and patient labor — -profound in- 
vestigation and experience. Nor can it ever be 
done aright without the blessing of Him who 
has made of one blood all the families that 
dwell on the face of the whole earth. I do not, 
therefore, desire to make any apology for so 
often dwelling upon these matters. Many years 
studying of the rise and influence of Commerce 
and Letters, and of the rise and fall of. free 
States, and of Constitutions and Laws, and of 
the systems of education that have been tried in 
this country and in Europe, convince me that as 
a country our only hope is in the intelligence, 
morality and religion of the people. If these are- 
not sufficient to maintain our Constitution and 
Laws, they must fall, and with them will perish' 
all our sacred rights and liberties. As the 
Church of God is His great teaching institute 
for the world — as we are commissioned to teach- 
all nations while we preach the Gospel to every" 
creature, we feel authorized to plead for the ed- 
ucation of mankind as a remedy for their wrong 
doings and' sufferings. 

The People are Sovereign. 

L It is clear that with us the sovereignty is with 
the people, and'that the only restraints put upon- 
that sovereignty are to be found- in our Consti- 
tution and laws made in pursuance thereto. It 
is also plain that the frame- work of society rests 
upon the masses. If they are in a healthfnl con- 
dition, then all goes well; the social edifice is 
secure; but if they are corrupt and in an un- 
healthy state, then the social edifice is like a 
stately building on the summit of a slumbering 
volcano. It may seem to be as secure as it is 
beautiful, although it is every moment liable to- 
be swallowed up in the abyss beneath. Should' 
the ignorance and vice that now exists in our 
large towns and cities, and which are constantly 
being increased by emigration, and the natural' 
increase of depraved' families go on unchecked 
for another generation, the well-springs of so- 
cial health will be so polluted and corrupted^ 
that the very existence of social order will be 
put in imminent peril. Good men have some- 
times expressed their astonishment at the wrong- 
doings and sufferings of our fellow men. But 
when we consider how long the masses have 
been left in ignorance, and the young have been 
permitted to grow up in vice, and how hardly 
the multitudes have fared from tyrants, priests, 
and anarchy, the wonder with us really is, not 
that we find so many depraved and suffering, 
but that the moral contagion has not already 
spread to every class of society. Nor is this the 
whole of the evil. Ignorance is not all. — Men- 
tal stupidity and moral callousness are not all. 
Much of the ^instruction bestowed on youth; is 
radically wrong. Muchof the instruction which 
they receive by design and without the intention- 
of their teachers and parents is radically wro. 
I mean to say the principles they are taught ^r 
which they imbibe from companions and passing 
scenes, are radically wrong. Such, for example, 
as pride and haughtiness of temper, the spirit 
of revenge and retaliation which the mother 









'o 



teadbes when she stamps the naughty floor for 
bruising her darling : s head. — The blossoming 
of this seed is seen when the child revenges 
himself upon his brother or companion in school; 
for some fancied wrong, and its fruit in the duel 
or the street fray. Now no one can deny but 
that different and more happy results would fol- 
low, if the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount 
were faithfully impressed upon the minds of 
children. Nor does any doubt but that there is 
an urgency for immediate attention to this point. 
Our code of blood draws its nourishment from 
the nursery. 

The right beginning is the first and the chief 
preventive in our power of the moral and 
social disease that is preying with such dread- 
ful ravages upon us. We must not wait till it 
is full blown and perhaps altogether beyond 
remedy. Venienti occurite morbo of the old 
physicians is the only safe motto for us, or the 
cbsta principiis of the Romans. We must resist 
the beginnings of evil. We must come at the 
disease, before its virus prevades the whole 
system, and the vital functions are destroyed 
by it. Every one knows that a little care ; a 
right effort, and at small cost may be sufficient 
to arrest a dangerous and contagious malady, 
while yet in the bud ; but that when it is 
allowed to take root, and grow strong, then 
every effort and every expense maybe unavail- 
ing. The skilful educators of our youth are 
the Doctors Jexxers of society. They insert 
in early and good time, a conservative power, 
which once within the system will hardly lose 
its power in seven or seven times seven 
years, and which either altogether averts 
disease, or renders it at least mild and tract- 
able when it comes. Our teachers, if wise and 
successful, will use a moral vaccine, which 
may prevent, and which must modify our social 
•disorders. Nor is there any other way half so 
good by which to produce the highest social 
health among us. 

Laics with Penalties. 

II. Now, if a proper education be what I 
have described it, then much more are we to re- 
gard the teachings of the pulpit and of the Sabbath 
School as a preventive of crime. 

It is in the House of the Lord on the Sabbath 
that the Word of God is read, and its precepts, 
commandments, threatenings and promises are 
explained to the people. It is impossible to 
know to what extent the influences of the 
Sabbath services may prevail over the doings 
of a Christian assembly during the week. But 
they ought to be, and they are very great. But 
for the reasons that the Sabbath School has 
chiefly to do with the young, and that its in- 
structions are more direct, and accompanied 
with social warmth, it is pre-eminently an agent 
in preventing crime and checking vice, whose 
importance can scarcely be overrated. 

I do not say, my fellow citizens, that cur Con- 
stitution and laws are not good. I believe them 
to be the best that have ever been framed by 
mortal man. Nor do I believe that uninspired 
men can furnish the world with any better. Nor 
do I say that we are to depend wholly upon 
moral suasion, and that our statute laws must 
not be sustained by the execution of their 
penalties — nor that punishment is not necessary. 
But I do say that all Governments have, in all 



ages, leaned too much upon punishment as a 
means of repressing crime, and not enough upon 
the law of kindness. This is true of all kinds 
of criminals, but especially of juvenile delin- 
quents. I hold that the history of our race, and 
the results arrived at by the wisest legislation 
of the greatest and most highly civilized nations 
of Europe, prove conclusively the following 
points : 

First, That punishments are essential for the 
restraint of criminals and as a terror to evil 
doers. The majesty of law, without which there 
is neither liberty nor happiness, cannot be sus- 
tained without penalties. 

Secondly, It is quite as clearly proven, that 
mere punishments, even under the most favor- 
able circumstances, do but little in the way of 
checking vice, repressing crime, or healing 
human suffering, or of reforming the delinquent. 
There are some things that should not be 
familiar even to our thoughts, much less should 
they dwell on our lips, or linger in our ears, or 
abide in our presence. And certainly there are 
many things which children should be kept 
from knowing or having any familiarity with as 
long as possible. The testimony of the best 
men in England is, that the effect of frequent 
and of public executions is brutalizing and de- 
grading, and instead of having an influence to 
prevent crime, rather increases it, and prepares 
the way for their repetition. 

It is found that the very spectacle of a human 
being executed as a sacrifice to popular venge- 
ance kindles the passion of murder. A vain 
and wicked curiosity first prompts to witness a 
revolting and ghastly spectacle — and then con- 
templates the agony with indifference, and then 
with pleasure, and then with a desire to see it 
again — and thus the demoralization of the finer 
feelings is complete. It is to prevent such bru- 
talizing effects that the wisest legislation has 
ordered that executions should be in private, 
and with the least possible display of force and 
of barbarity. As Plato long since said, "the 
law is mind without passion, and therefore like 
God." "Lex est mens sine affectu, et quasi 
Deus.' ; So the punishment of vice must be ex- 
ecuted without any vindictiveness or show of 
revenge. It must be done so purely, and so pal- 
pably as a necessity of law, that no feelings of 
revenge can be excited. To inflict punishment 
of any kind in such a way as to excite passion 
and arouse revenge, is to increase the evil, ra- 
ther than remedy it. The object of punishment 
is not revenge or vindictiveness, but to reform 
and save, if possible, the guilty, and make the 
law a terror to evil doers. The punishments 
inflicted then, must not be in contravention of 
law, but according to law and justice. 

Thirdly, The happiest experiments of states- 
men and philanthropists in trying to reform the 
vicious, and ameliorate human suffering, demon- 
strate that kindness will do more to prevent 
crime and arrest the career of wrong doers than 
all other measures that have ever been devised. 
Kindness is the surest road to all human hearts, 
but especially of the young. And of all kinds 
of kindness known to man, that which opens up 
the mind and enlarges the heart — that quickens 
the intellect and the affections — such goings 
forth of kindness as is contemplated in clothing 
the naked, feeding the hungry, and soothing the 
suffering, and pouring the light of truth and 
knowledge upon the darkened understanding. 



If then truth in love is the remedy for human 
wrong doing and suffering — if the punishment 
of evil doers is of itself not an effectual check 
on vice, nor a preventive of crime, as all human 
legislation and experience show, u what shall we 
do ?' : Are we to despair ? By no means ; there 
is much we can do, and do at once. The suffer- 
ing can be relieved — the young can be educated. 
Nor can I see any other way to purify the body 
politic, and restore ou»" social condition to a 
healthy state. To quicken the intellect and the 
moral feelings ot the rising generation, will do 
what no degrees or kind of punishment has ever 
been able to do. It will go far to prevent crime, 
if it be accompanied by the grace ot God. And 
to bring our adult population to fear God and 
keep His commandments, is the only way to 
make them happy and well to do in the world. 
The fountain and origin of the tribes of the 
wretched, is the depravity of our race. And the 
crop of evil doers, in spite of all that is done by 
the police and by the work house, and the 
prison and the gallows, is generated every year 
with as much certainty and regularity as the 
ordinary harvest that is gathered by the patient 
and toiling husbandman. 

Punishment found wanting. 

We are told that in courts of justice from 
year to year, the same faces are seen coming 
back tor punishment for fresh offences — the 
former punishments which they may have re- 
ceived having proved quite ineffectual to deter 
them from the commission of fresh crimes — and, 
that also there are constantly coming to the bar, 
the faces of parties who had not previously 
been there themselves, but who are in various 
ways related to the former criminals — and that 
in the words of Mr. Advocate Moncrieff, of Ed- 
inburgh, (See Edinburgh Review, for much on 
this subject) '"in the number, in the extent, and 
the nature of the crimes, there is a singular and 
peculiar coincidence." 

Now there must by some rule or law on this 
subject — and we believe that it is found in this 
— that in society the same soil substantially is 
cultivated in the same manner from year to 
year, and that in this soil, by far the greater pro- 
portion of the crimes that people our jails are 
early generated — and that therefore, if as citi- 
zens and as philanthropists, we desire to prevent 
the commission of crimes, and to improve our 
social order, we must rely not upon punishment, 
nor upon prison discipline ; but upon cultivat- 
ing the soil, and preventing the weeds that grow 
there from the beginning, and upon sowing in 
that soil, as we carefully prepare it, the good 
seed. That is. we must begin early in the season, 
and we must put into use all our improvements 
for draining and sub-soiling. We must harness 
up all our forces, and put our steam engines 
for draining to work. Our private and public 
schools, day schools, night schools, ragged 
schools, industrial schools, and Sabbath schools, 
and by the unceasing plying of such combined 
and mighty apparatus, drain off the hot bed of 
crime and infidelity, and immorality, and cause 
to grow up instead thereof the blessed fruits of 
virtue and piety. We may erect a citadel on 
every street, and plant cannon on the top of 
every warehouse, and convert every man and 
boy into a dragoon, and scour the country from 
the sea to the mountains for gamblers and thieves, 



but until the work of education is rightly done, 
and all have reverence for God and for his laws, 
we shall never have a home here fit to rear our 
children in, nor a moral and religious, peaceable 
and well to do city. 

The faithful' and honest execution ot wise 
laws, prison discipline, education, home mis- 
sions, and the weekly administration of the pul- 
pit, and other like agencies, are of the utmost 
importance in their place, but they are of them- 
selves inadequate to the work of pi eventing the 
generating of criminals. To depend upon such 
means only is to fire a battery upon the enemy, 
or below the pitch of the guns — the shot groes 
over them. Before such agencies can take effect,, 
their objects must be raised to the level of hu- 
man beings, and there is no means by which this 
can be done at all, or at least, done to so much 
purpose, as by the agency of schools for the 
poorest on the week day, in which they shall be 
taught to think and to read, and schools on the 
Lord's day, in which they shall be taught their 
accountability to God and their duties to their 
fellow men. 

III. In our opinion, history teaches that hitherto 
the principal means for alleviating human woes 
have been too much of a punitive character. 
It is indeed necessary that laws should be sus- 
tained by penalties- -that life, character and 
property should be protected by the punish- 
ment of offenders; but the chief business in re- 
gard to juvenile delinquents should be to re- 
claim them from their evil ways. And in the 
punishment of evil doers of all ages, great care 
must be exercised in punishing none but the 
guilty, and that their punishment be not dispro- 
portionably severe. It is a wrong to society 
when punishment is inflicted through revenge, 
or in a spirit of vindictive hate, oris accompa- 
nied by any circumstance that tends to harden 
the spectators to crime, and brutalizes public 
sentiment, or diminishes the majesty of the 
law in the eyes of the people. As it is the kiss 
and not the blow that subdues the heart of the 
youthful offender, so it is the magic of kindness 
that saves the erring, rather than the terror of 
punishment. 

Ragged and Industrial Schools. 

In addition to the means and agencies that 
we have already at work, we want what are 
called in England Ragged Schools and Indus- 
trial schools, such as have been established in 
Scotland — schools that furnish, as far as need 
be, food and clothing, and train the children to- 
some useful employment, at the same time that 
they are taught to read and to understand some 
of the great doctrines of the Bible. Food and 
training, and religious instruction, are so secured 
to poor children in the Scottish Industrial 
Schools, that they are taught to rely upon them- 
selves — to help themselves as much as possible. 
Our public schools, excellent as they are, are 
not intended to supply food or clothing to the 
poor, nor to teach the children any useful em- 
ployment. And in these particulars they fail to 
meet our whole wants. Nor do our asylums, 
hospitals, and places of relief and refuge meet 
our necessities. These are important institu- 
tions, and deserve the intelligent liberality of 
the community; but there is a large class, and 
the class is rapidly increasing, who are not 
proper subjects for either of these institutions. 



Their self-respect and hope of advancement in 
life would be destroyed by putting them on a 
level with the inmates of such institutions. 
And many are not able to go to the public 
schools, because they are too old. and yet are 
in great need of elemeutary instruction; or if 
not too old, they have to labor all day for food 
and clothing, and if they get time to go to 
school, they are not taught any trade by which 
to earn a living; nor are they taught 1 heir duty 
to God. The Industrial School and the Sab- 
bath School are therefore both needed to com- 
plete our educational wants All the children 
of a community must have food and clothing, 
and at the same time acquire habits of industry, 
and a knowledge of some trade or kind of busi- 
ness by which to earn a living, and make their 
way honestly and honorably when they go out 
into the great world. It you offer to leach a 
child on Sunday the way to Heaven while his 
clothing is so shabby that he is ashamed to 
speak to you. or while his stomach is gnawing 
with hunger, he doubts your sincerity — unless 
you provide first for his wants — it all looks to 
him as a mockery to tell him of the love of 
God And it is equal mockery to such a child 
if you tell him 1o go and work, if he knows not 
how to work, nor where to find employment. 
And of many children, we may ask, how should 
they know how to earn a living 1 They see no 
work, no neatness, no industry at home. Such 
things are all in an unknown tongue to them. 
If they are ever to be industrious members 
of society, they must be brought up in the hab- 
its of industrious labor, suited to their years. 
To supply the wants of many children, both or- 
phans and others, we want an institution that 
should combine manual labor suited to both 
sexes and all ages with instruction both in the 
elements of knowledge and of religion, and at 
the same time so far as might be essentially ne- 
cessary, supply them with decent clothing and 
healthful food. Reading, writing and arithme- 
tic, and some knowledge of the word of God. are 
essentially necessary to the well being of society. 
No education, however extended, is complete 
without religious instruction, drawn from the 
pure source of the Bible alone. And in this 
particular, and the most important'one. Sabbath 
Schools are the best institutions that have, ever 
been tried. There is nothing superior but fam- 
ily religion and pastoral supervision. And for 
those that keep themselves out of the pastor's 
precincts, and who have but little religious in- 
fluence in their families, the Sabbath School is 
our only hope. 

An Incomplete Education. 

Education is, of course, the basis of every 
method that can be tried for the prevention o 
crime and the reformation of juvenile delin- 
quency, and, it is invariably admitted both in 
this country and abroad, that moral training is 
the most essential part of education The prac- 
tice, however, if not the theory of both school 
teachers and school directors so far overlooks 
the moral teaching for the more brilliant results 
of intellectual cultivation ; that the teacher is 
usually most commended whose pupils are the 
farthest advanced in knowledge without distinct 
reference to their deportment. So long as this 
error prevails, and prizes are awarded without 
direct acknowledgment of moral worth or re- 



buke for bad behavior, we shall ftndour children 
well educated, rather than well behaved ; and 
so long as 1 1 • is continues, so long education will 
be no barrier against crime. Abundant statis- 
tics both in this country and in Europe have 
been repeatedly furnished, which prove heyondr 
the possibility of a doubt, that mere intellectual 
education is a stimulus to, rather th in a preven- 
tive of crime. Schools without moral restraint 
are no checks on crime. The chaplain of Pen- 
tonville. England, reports, that out of 1000 pri- 
soners, only l"). r ) had never attended school — 
that 674 had attended the usual private, nation- 
al, parochial schools ; but that of this 1000 pri- 
soners only 171 had ever been to Sunday 
Schools. Similar reports have been frequently 
given. And the sum of their proof pn the point 
in hand is. that moral training is the only pre- 
ventive of crime. In the most highly favored 
countries there have always been the following 
delects in the bringing up of children : 

First — Adequate provisions have not been 
made for the complete education of all the 
youth of the country in their physical. mental, 
and moral powers and faculties. 

A second defect is. that even where the most 
liberal schemes have been devised and executed 
for the education of the people, still many have 
remained in stupor and ignorance — either not 
taught at all, or taught so badly, that they 
know but little, and actually practice less. 
They remain ignorant of many of their duties, 
and are not awakened to the consciousness of 
what they could do for themselves. It is a 
great error to confound going to school with 
being educated It is one thing to be able to go 
over by rote a lesson, and quite another thing 
to understand it. and have acquired mental 
strength for conflict with difficulties. It is 
quite a prevalent error to confound church- 
going with personal piety. Some seem to think 
that all that is necessary to do to go to Heaven, 
is to repeat a creed, say a few prayers, put on 
fine clothes on Sunday and go to church, and 
pay their pew tax when called on. This is all 
very well. And I hope you do faithfully attend 
to all these things; but you must not rely on 
them for salvation. The heart must be renewed, 
and Christ Jesus must be formed in us, the 
hope of glory. No one who has not personally 
given his attention to this subject, can form any 
just idea of the profound ignorance of adult per- 
sons on the doctrines of the Bible, who grow up 
without being taught the Catechism. The 
Commissioners of Pentonville, in their fourth 
report, stale that the ignorance of those who are 
brought under the instruction of that place of 
Christianity, is most deplorable ; so that terms 
used in ordinary pulpit discourses convey no 
distinct idea to their mind; and the peculiar 
doctrines of the Gospel are altogether unknown, 
or so confused in their minds as if they heard of 
them only through some distant and obscure 
tradition. As farmers, laborers, domestic ser- 
vants, they were as intelligent as others, and as 
regular at church ; but remained ignorant of re- 
ligion, because they did not understand the 
minister. TheChiplam of Hertford s ays. that 
out of 463 prisoners in the year 1847, he found 
22 h per cent, ignorant of the name of Christ. 
And that in 1818, as many as 127 ; or about a 
fourth, were in the same predicament. 

We may get some idea how it is that such ig- 
norance prevails, if we remember that London 



'the seat of the greatest power in the world, may- 
be estimated as having a population of two and 
a half or three millions, and that the whole 
■number of places of worship is not quite 800, 
with sittings for six or seven hundred thousand 
.persons. There is, therefore, every Lord's Day 
•in London, about two millions of souls that do 
•not attend either church or chapel. These sta- 
tistics are taken from English authorities, and 
the same views I have taken are sustained with 
great ability in the Edinburgh Review. 

Some idea may be formed of what the popu- 
lous districts and large towns of even this coun- 
try will become, unless the evil is corrected in 
its very beginning, when we recollect that there 
is such a thing publicly acknowledged as pau- 
perism in the great State of Massachusetts, the 
very fountain head of intelligence and enter- 
iprise and of many good notions, but with a few 
very bad isms. In the manufacturing town of 
Lowell, with a population of probably 25,000 
inhabitants, there were, a few years ago, several 
hundred paupers, who were in whole or in part 
-supported at the public expense. Now I do not 
allow, as some contend, that manufacturing or 
•density of population must be accompanied with 
■.pauperism. I have elsewhere defended mercan- 
tile pursuits against such charges. I do notbe- 
.lieve that trade and manufacturers are attended 
necessarily with any demoralizing effects. But 
I do most certainly believe that the want of 
-education — the want of the right kind of educa- 
tion, a Want of right intellectual, industrial and 
•moral training in the youth of any community 
■will be followed by crime, which, in its turn, 
will, and always does, produce wants, poverty 
;and wo. 

Absenteeism in California, 

IV. I am now prepared to observe that one of 
the great and out-crying causes of the evils that 
^oppress our State is absenteeism, both of parents 
and children, and the consequent disruption of 
family ties. This living on the wing — here to- 
'day, but who can find you to-morrow ? — this dis- 
solution of families before their time is a system 
or institution that annually transfers hundreds 
of thousands of dollars from our purses to those 
»of our Eastern brethren, and makes us hewers 
■of wood and drawers of water, or rather hewers 
<of roek and diggers of gold-yielding soil, to our 
contented and stay-at-home countrymen and the 
o*est of maukind. But what is worse, this ha- 
bitual traveling dissipates the mind, breaks up 
the discipline of the family, and leads to innu- 
merable evils. The separation of parents from 
their children is a great evil. So perilous do I 
•consider the sending of a child away from home 
to a distant boarding school for an education, 
that it seems to me a serious question whether 
>even a liberal education is a sufficient reward 
for the loss of parental control, discipline, ex- 
ample and affection. The evils of boarding 
schools and of college commons and steward's 
halls, I have spoken of before. The disruption 
of the domestic relation by the husband spend- 
ing his time in one place and the wife in another, 
;and the children somewhere else, has a most 
^pernicious effect upon both parents, and is likely 
•to leave the children badly educated and home- 
less. There is no earthly chance for the true 
(permanent elevation of any community without 
permanent family residents. An aggregation of 



men without their wives, mothers and sisters 
become reckless and degraded. The laws of 
nature cannot be trifled with or violated with 
impunity. And this may be the proper place 
for me to intimate that I have a great deal to 
say against families congregating in boarding 
houses and hotels. It is perfectly obvious that 
the tendency of such a custom is highly dan- 
gerous to public morals and domestic peace. 
Newly married ladies should neither stay at 
home with their parents, nor go to a fashionable 
or crowded boarding house. Nor should they 
spend their time in idleness, or what may be 
even worse, readiug novels in the morning, lis 
tening to gossip in the afternoon, and then spend 
the evening in a heated theatre. Is it surprising 
that such a family soon become restless, broken 
down in fortune and in health, and reckless and 
ruined, both for time and eternity. "Love in a 
cottage" is better than a palace without honor 
or domestic peace It is better for a newly mar- 
ried pair to go to housekeeping, even in the 
humblest manner, and put their shoulders to- 
gether and bear the burdens of life at the very 
beginning. It is good for them to bear 
the yoke in their youth. Their toils and their 
mutual strugglings together, and to sustain each 
other up the hill, will sweeten all the cup of ma- 
trimonial existence. And if they become pros- 
perous, they will recollect their early days of 
self-denial and struggle as the sweetest days of 
all their lives. 

that I could reach the ear of every mer- 
chant, shopman, miner, laborer and clerk, as 
well as every merchant in the land, and warn 
him against spending his time and his earnings 
in clubs and drinking houses, instead of having 
a neat home, though it might be an humble cot- 
tage, and " Heaven's last, best gift to man' 7 — a 
help meet and companion — a lawful and wedded 
wife. 

It has been found by repeated experiments 
with convicts transported from Great Britain, 
that the only chance of reforming convict fe- 
males, was to place them in the situation for 
which nature intended them, and in calling forth 
the feelings of a wife and mother, which, 
though downcast, are rarely extinguished in the 
female breast. " The general good conduct of 
female convicts in Van Dieman's land after mar- 
riage, is almost incredible." says the Edinburgh 
Review. 

There is a great principle in human nature on 
this subject, which is just as strong in San Fran- 
cisco as in Van Dieman's land ; and, although it 
may not be as strong in men as in women, still 
the best preventive of crime, and in fact the 
only hope of reforming them after they have 
fallen into dissipation, is to have them in such 
a situation as will call out their natural feelings 
of husband and wife, father and mother, in the 
strongest and purest manner. But this cannot 
be done if men live as hermits or monks, separ- 
ated many long months, and even years, from 
the society of their wives and children. These 
ties should be strengthened rather than weak- 
ened, if we would have a healthy state of so- 
ciety. There is also another and kindred prin- 
ciple of human nature, which is on the side of 
virtue. It is this : however wicked and even 
vicious parents may be themselves, it is seldom, 
perhaps never, that they wish their children to 
be ungodly and vicious like themselves. In 
the parental bosom there is a strong instinctive 



wish that' their children may be prosperous and 
morally better than they are. This is doubtless 
one of the great providential principles that bind 
families together for the welfare of society. 
Even criminals are not destitute of all good and 
kindly feelings. Tuey are seldom void of all 
pride in their children or of fondness for them, 
and for their own parents. Even amongst the 
lowest haunts of crime and infamy, it is seldom 
that parents, by direct training, teach their own 
children to be vicious. Total neglect, or total ina- 
bility to discharge the proper duties of parents, 
vilelodgings.filthy clothing,depraved neighbors, 
are quite enough to account for excess of crime 
amongst the offspring of thp abaudoned poor in 
large towns. The feelings of nature are the last 
to leave the fallen, and these are to be found 
amongst the vilest of mankind, more than is 
generally thought. It is rare to find a human 
being, in whose heart there is not some corner 
left wherein to place the lever that may turn 
him to God and virtue. 

Our actual condition and its causes. 

And now, finally, what is our actual condi- 
tion and what is the remedy ? What are our 
social disorders that need healing? 

Fellow-citizens, when I first landed on your 
shores — I remember the time well — I was told 
that the times were sadly depressed — that it was 
much more difficult to raise money for any pur- 
pose than it was when I was invited to come, 
but that society was rapidly improving, and that 
you would build me a fine church, and that a re- 
vival of business would soon take place. You 
have built the church and paid for it. You have 
nobly done. But the improvement of society 
has been disproved by recent proceedings. And 
the revival of business has not yet come. A 
tew spasmodic or galvanic emotions have been 
felt, but the tendency of real estate has been 
downward, and is still going on in the same 
direction. That such would be the case I al- 
ways maintained, but the downward tendency 
has been more rapid and with greater throes and 
convulsions, and a more dangerous momentum 
than I anticipated. Still I have every motive 
to make me love California, and I do feel the 
deepest interest in its welfare. I came hither at 
great sacrifices in almost every point of view. I 
have a large young family here to take care of. 
I have said and written a great deal in behalf of 
this State I have always tried to look on its 
bright side. Its gold, its soil, its climate and 
its geographical and commercial position point 
it out as the home of wealth and power, and the 
very " pathway of empire." God, in his provi- 
dence, has highly favored this portion of the 
globe. Why, then, is there such a continued cry 
of violence and blood, of suffering, depression 
and consuming want? There may be honest 
difference of opinion as to some of the causes 
that have brought us to our present condition, 
and there may be. and there no doubt are, hon- 
est differences of opinion among patriotic and 
pure minded men as to the true remedy for our 
evils. But the causes and the true remedy are 
to my mind perfectly plain. History and the 
word of God have revealed them. 

The cause of causes is human depravity. 
Back of all other causes lies the fountain 
from which flows the stream of human woes. 
That foun^in is sin— a departure from the 



living God, and a want of original righteous- 
ness. The immediate causes and actual de- 
velopments of human depravity among us that 
have made us a hissing and a terror in the civi- 
lized world, are to be found in the corrupting in- 
fluences of gold and of riches accumulated sud- 
denly, and often by dishonest means — specula- 
tion and fraud — idleness — too many seeking to- 
live by their wits and not by honest labor — the 
aggregation here of the depraved and the ad- 
venturing of many lands — the absence of family 
ties — husbands and fathers and brothers congre- 
gated here without their wives, daughters and 
sisters — the presence of swarms of bad women 
from almost all parts of the known world in 
our cities and throughout our mountain towns — 
and hard drinking, and gambling, and working 
on the Lord's day, and the carrying and using 
of deadly weapons, and lawlessness in a thous- 
and ways — the idea and the feeling too that this 
was not our home — that this country would do 
to trade in — to speculate in — to scrape gold out 
of — but not to make one's home — and the con- 
sequent shipping out of the country of large 
sums of treasure, and recently more than ever — 
and the s.-nding away of our children to be edu- 
cated — and the prolonged absence of citizens 
and capitalists from the country — the indiffer- 
ence of some as to the support of Home insti- 
tutions, and the absorption of others in their 
own affairs, and their refusal to perform the 
duties of good citizens in upholding the laws of 
the country, and their neglect of public affairs,, 
and the consequent leaving of them to fall, in 
some instances, into the hands of incompetent,, 
unprincipled or bad men. These and the such 
like are the immediate active causes of our pre- 
sent melancholy state of affairs. And as a re- 
sult of these things we are overwhelmed with' 
corruption. And the dark, deep torrent of 
blood is fast bearing us into chaos and hopeless- 
ruin. Our children's ears are becoming so* 
familiar with the ugliest words in our language,, 
that there is danger they will grow up emulous- 
of deeds that would disgrace barbarism. Why 
this averted countenance and cold suspicion at? 
the meeting of neighbors? What has become 
of the bright sunshine joys of our social gather- 
ings? Why are so many faces sad and anxious,, 
and why are some of our homes desolate or 
cheerless ? The answer is but too plain. One 
dreadful deed of lawlessness and blood after 
another crowds so closely upon us that the heart 
grows sick at the recitals that fill our daily 
papers. And is this demon thirst for blood 
never to be slaked ? Has our community be- 
come like the herds of wild beasts- in a Roman 
amphitheater, which, when once they had tasted 
of the warm blood of their victims became un- 
manageable and perfectly furious? Are our 
children to be born Mephibosheths, lame and 
mal- formed, and marked with blood, because of 
the alarm and terror that fill our ears from the 
daily record of crime ? Are we on these radiant 
shores never again to have peace and prosperity ? 
Is our history hencefortn to have but two 
chapters, gold and blood, and blood and gold ? 
Are we to read of nothing but corruption, fraud 
and bankruptcy, of arrests and trials and execu- 
tions — and then again of assassinations and 
robbery, and of murder and hanging, — until 
such things shall press in upon families as the 
atmosphere does, and the very first words our 
children lisp shall be those that made us shud- 



8 



<der with fright when we were first grown up? 
and in their innocent plays from day to day are 
they to frighten one another with threats of a 
Vigilance Committee, a"d act over again the 
appalling scenes that have startled us from day 
to day ? Do I speak of facts or of fancies? to 
God they were not dreadful facts known of all 
men. 

The remedy. 

Ard. fellow- citizens, is there no remedy? 
We think there is. Society must be regenerated. 
We are quite sure there is a remedy. And it is 
this : We must get back to the platform our 
fathers tried and found good- — to the platform our 
brothers are now standing on in our transmon- 
tane homes. We must get back to the Bible, and to 
*he honest and faithful administration of consti- 
tutional laws. We must elevate and purify public 
sentiment by the principles of the ten command- 
ments, and of the sermon on the mount. We 
must have the gospel of Jesus Christ in its 
purity and power, in all our families. And if we 
cannot, do all this in one moment, we must be- 
gin and do what we can. And if we cannot 
save the adult population, let us at least try to 
save the children. And in order to keep their 
tender minds from contamination, let us have 
•no more pictures of assassinations and execu- 
tions. Let us have no more conversations in 
the presence of our children about deeds of vio- 
lence and bloodshed. The often hearing of such 
tales of horror blunts their sensibilities and de- 
stroys all finer feelings Let us cherish senti- 
ments of kindness, and allow ninety-nine guilty 
persons to go unpunished rather than to punish 
one innocent person. And when the awful exe- 
cution of law has to take place, let it not be in 
public, but in the jail yard or in the dark dun- 
geon. Let us have no more pandering to the 
popular cry for blood. Let us have no Theban 
or Thracian orgies re-enacted in our streets — no 
*'auto de fe," nor Roman holidays, to gratify a 
morbid thirst for blood, which, the more it is 
led, the more insatiable if becomes 

An article appeared in the '"Chronicle" of 
this city, last Thursday, which is so much to 
my mind, that I have taken the liberty of tran- 
scribing the following sentences. In speaking 
of our '"wrongs and their remedies," and des- 
pairing almost of any redress from reason or 
justice, that paper says: 

" Uur only apeal now is to that Superintend- 
ing Power which has never forsaken the Ameri- 
can people in their extremity; which sustained 
us amid the stormy waters of the Revolution, 
when they threatened to enyulf our vessel, and 
granted to us an interval of happiness and re- 
pose, such as heaven never vouchsafed to any 
other people. We ask for peace and quiet ; we 
ask for stability and an honest administration 
of the government; we ask tor a transition 
from our present unhappy state to that peaceful 
•condition of society in which we were nurtured 
and educated in the old States. • 

3V ?£• «P «P «1? «t" *P n? 

It is clear that we must retrograde; we have 
feeen on the down road — we are on it yet. Let 



us go back to the goal and take a new start on 
our career of life." 

But I would not have you think that our duty 
requires us to sit still and '" wait for some provi- 
dential power" to '' come among us and devour 
the moral monster who is glutting his maw with 
the carcass of Virtue.', 

In going back to the goal, I would not have 
you go to chaos. We have some good things 
left. Our fundamental laws are good. They 
embody the highest wisdom and the best experi- 
ence of the wisest and best men that have ever 
lived. And we have some honest and able men 
among us. and we have a large number of 
churches, quite as many as a population no 
larger than ours is likely to sustain. 

We have the word of God and the Gospel of 
Jesus Christ, which are as efficacious now, and 
in these ends of the earth, as when the Re- 
deemer shed his blood for the redemption of 
sinners. And we have all the apparatus and ma- 
chinery of Christian benevolence and patriotism 
that we could desire. We have a Bible Society 
and Tract Society. We have Public Schools 
and Sabbath Schools — a Lyceum, a Mercantile 
Library Association, a Mechanic's Institute, and 
Associations of Firemen, and various Benevolent 
Societies, and a Young Men's Christian Associ- 
ation. And we have Hospitals and Asylums, 
and Courrs of Justice. Nor do I believe that 
these various agencies of civilization in this 
city are inferior to those of any of our sister 
cities. I do not believe our Public Schools are 
to be surpassed by those of any other city of the 
Sitmc age and population in the world. 

What we want then is not externals, but in- 
ternals. We want the people to fear God and 
keep his laws. We want law and not lawless- 
ness. We want the Spirit of Christ, and not the 
mere name of civilization and forms of godli- 
ness. This is all we want to make this the 
brightest jewel of the American continent. 
When the Gospel of Jesus Christ shall prevail 
am.mg us in its purity and power, then will 
men oe honest and sober and industrious — then 
will they be charitable and pure and law- 
abiding — and then, but not till then, will there 
be stability and confidence, and brotherly kind- 
ness and peace among us. But you may de- 
pend upon it, the stream of blood will never be 
staid while men take the law into their own 
hands, and whiie the fierce brutal passions are 
excited under the pretext of supporting the 
laws, and revenge is mingled with the main- 
tenance of justice. 

Never shall we have peace while gambling 
and lewdness and murder are allowed to reign 
in our city in defiance of our statutes. ||or can 
we expect freedom from violence while the prac- 
tice of carrying deadly weapons is continued, 
and the intoxicating glass is used to keep up 
brute courage. And never will men be virtu- 
ous until they are governed by principle, and 
not by brute force — never will they be happy 
until they fear God and love their fellow men. 
This is my testimony concerning our evils and 
their remedy. And may God bless every one 
of you, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory 
forever — Amkn. 



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